This invention relates generally to dispensers for strands and particularly to dispensers for a strand which is twine-wound on a spool.
As is well known to those skilled in the art, thread, as well as other linearly extended strands such as wire or the like, may be assembled for sale in several different manners. Strands such as sewing thread are level-wound along the length of a spool and may be readily dispensed therefrom by rotation of that spool about its central axis. As another alternative, a strand such as twine and crochet thread, may be wound upon a "ball", not levelly as with sewing thread, but rather in a direction parallel to the longitudinal axis of a spool while the spool is rotating about the axis. The "ball" resulting from such a winding process has the strand passing tangent to one side of the rotational axis at one end of the ball and tangent to the opposite side of the axis at the other end of the ball. For the purposes of the following discussion, a "ball" wound in this last mentioned manner will be termed "twine-wound". While twine-winding the thread about the ball may be convenient for the packaging of the thread, dispensing the thread from such a ball has plagued users.
The difficulty associated with unwinding thread from this type of ball is particularly aggravated in the case of crochet thread where an individual crocheter is attempting to remove thread continuously from the ball during the crocheting process. As will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the thread is easily removable from such a ball at all points intermediate the ends of the ball. At these ends, however, the ball, of necessity, must rotate about its axis through at least a half-revolution in order for the thread on the opposite side of the ball to be removed. Such half-rotation is made extremely difficult by virtue of the fact that the ball is generally resting on a portion of the thread. This difficulty results in the slowing down of the crocheting process and in potential mistakes by the crocheter due to the necessity of periodic tugging of the thread in order to rotate the ball.
Various dispensers have been devised which mount a reel or ball on a central axle in order to relieve the weight of the ball from that portion of its exterior which carries the thread. Such a device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,733,877 to Cunningham, which shows a horizontal axis for mounting a yarn or thread ball. U.S. Pat. No. 1,505,623 to Burton shows a vertical axis to which the ball is mounted and which prevents the ball from lateral displacement during dispensing. While the Burton and the Cunningham devices relieve the thread of the pressure which would result from the ball laying directly on its side, both suffer from the disadvantage that the thread coming off a twine-wound ball will have a tendancy to "tie up" about the ends of the axle if rotation is not constant. Neither the Burton or the Cunningham device is capable of the preventing such a ball end tie up.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,174,637 to Stupfell discloses a vertical axis mounted on a base together with a thread guide which is coaxially rotatable about the ball through 360.degree.. In addition, there is included means for adjusting the position of the thread guide along the longitudinal axis. Nevertheless, despite the existence of a variable position thread guide, the use of a vertical axle necessarily results in the weight of the thread ball being placed on a portion of the thread on one end of the ball, thereby restricting the removability of the thread from that end. In addition, while the thread guide is rotatable throughout 360.degree., its variability along the longitudinal axis only extends over approximately half of the length of the ball.
Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 3,228,627 to Bass discloses a support for spools containing wire to facilitate unwinding wire, which comprises a base, a vertically upright "U-shaped" member, having sockets on the upper ends of the "U" for supporting the axle or spindle of the spool of wire. A second U-shaped member is pivotally mounted to the top of the first U-shaped member at a position outwardly adjacent of the sockets. The "base" of this second U-shaped member comprises two spaced parallel rigid wires over an intermediate portion of the length thereof which wires act as guide means for the wire being unwound. The second U-shaped member is coaxially pivotable through 180.degree.. In addition the first U-shaped member is horizontally rotatably mounted to the base so as to be rotatable through 360.degree..
While the Bass support may result in a smooth dispensing of wire from a level wound spool, the device is unsuitable for dispensing twine-wound thread from a ball due to the fact that the thread guide located in the base of second U-shaped member extends only over the central portion of that ball and is, therefore, ineffective in alleviating the particular difficulties in dispensing thread which passes tangentially about the ends of the ball, specifically the tying-up of the thread behind and beneath the axle.
Since none of the devices disclosed in the references cited hereinabove, nor, indeed, any commercially available device is apparently capable of smoothly dispensing crochet thread from a twine-wound ball thereof, the need exists for such a dispenser which will not only allow such a smooth dispensing, but which also will be readily fabricated from inexpensive materials and easily maintained.